Chile Forum

Chile Forum in English for Gringos, Expatriates, and Travelers to Exchange Ideas and Information about Chile, South America. For more than a decade, the Chile Forum has been the center for expats to share their collective knowledge and experience about living in Chile. The Chile Forum is a free community service brought to you by the law office of Spencer Global.

o.k. I have been getting this question a lot recently, and thought it was worth definitively posting.

Yes, you must have at least a temporary RUT number for foreigners (if you don't have a permanent RUT number) to buy real estate in Chile. Not optional.

That said, I have a lot of people contacting me way, way, way in advance of even coming to Chile, that are worried about obtaining their RUT number. Sometimes years in advance of even starting to look for a property.

To all those people, stop obsessing about obtaining a RUT number. It is one of the easier steps involved in buying a property in Chile.

Far more important, among many other things to obsess about, is having a complete title search conducted, that you understand.

Having the contracts correctly drafted and executed.

Getting the title properly registered.

In fact, typically the most time consuming part of buying property, will be just finding one you like.

But, if you still, really, really want a temporary RUT number for foreigners, we can do it for you before you arrive.

We normally include obtaining a RUT number when we handle a property purchase for a client anyway, if they don't have one. We don't even charge extra for it.

The only time you might want to get one really early, is if your for example you are only in chile for a few days. Even then, we typically just do it by power of attorney, because I can guarantee you all the other steps involved in buying a property are going to take much, much longer than obtaining a RUT number.

Perhaps, if you are in Chile for a short while, and are intending to do other things like buy a car as soon as you arrive, it might be worth it. Even that is questionable.

So, unless you have very special situation, wait until you arrive in Chile to obtain a RUT number.

Perhaps this will put the time required to obtain a temporary RUT number for foreigners in better perspective in the larger context of buying a property in Chile.

From inside the country, when you are there personally, it typically takes an hour or two at the local IRS office (depending on the line), and the number is issued on the spot.

By comparison, when we conduct a title search, it takes typically 2-4 weeks, depending on how fast the government offices are with issuing official document copies. When the attorneys for banks do title searches for issuing mortgages they often take over 90 days.

Title registration can range from the same day (pretty rare), to 4-6 weeks in some areas of Chile.

That is all beyond time for finding a property, negotiating with the seller, fixing problems with the title, and so on, and so on.

So, while other things are going on, there is plenty of time to obtain a RUT number.

admin, now that you have posted the need to having a 'power of attorney'- is it same as a " poder" in Chilean ? And if one to send a poder to a friend in Chile, with the purpose of getting a RUT card or sort, then what to detail in the so called "poder" ?

HybridAmbassador wrote:admin, now that you have posted the need to having a 'power of attorney'- is it same as a " poder" in Chilean ? And if one to send a poder to a friend in Chile, with the purpose of getting a RUT card or sort, then what to detail in the so called "poder" ?

Seriously though. Don't try to draft your own power of attorney, for anything.

A power of attorney is the single most dangerous document in Chile.

The all time record financial losses we have ever seen a foreigner take (in the millions of dollars several times) and largest most expensive legal messes created (years of going to court), had a power of attorney as the root cause.

Often the results was total write off of the investment, as there was no going to court to fix it. It was too late.